Biography

Christian Friedrich Hebbel (18 March 1813 – 13 December 1863) was a German poet and dramatist. Hebbel was born at Wesselburen in Dithmarschen, Holstein, the son of a bricklayer. He was educated at the Gelehrtenschule des Johanneums, a grammar school in Hamburg, Germany. Despite his humble origins, he showed a talent for poetry, resulting in the publication in the Hamburg Modezeitung of verses which he had sent to Amalie Schoppe (1791–1858), a popular journalist and author of nursery tales. Through her patronage, he was able to go to the University of Hamburg.

A year later he went to Heidelberg University to study law, but gave it up and went on to the University of Munich, where he devoted himself to philosophy, history and literature. In 1839, Hebbel left Munich and walked all the way back to Hamburg, where he resumed his friendship with Elise Lensing, whose self-sacrificing assistance had helped him over the darkest days in Munich. In the same year he wrote his first tragedy, Judith (1840, published 1841), which was performed in Hamburg and Berlin the following year, making his name known throughout Germany.In 1840, he wrote the tragedy Genoveva, and the following year he completed a comedy, Der Diamant, which he had begun at Munich. In 1842 he visited Copenhagen, where he obtained from King Christian VIII a small traveling stipend, which enabled him to spend time in Paris and two years (1844–1846) in Italy. In Paris he wrote the "tragedy of common life," Maria Magdalena (1844). On his return from Italy, Hebbel met in Vienna two Prussian noblemen of the Zerboni di Sposetti family, who in their enthusiasm for his genius urged him to remain, providing financial support that allowed him to mingle in the best intellectual society of the Austrian capital.

Hebbel's old precarious existence now became a horror to him, and he broke with the past by marrying (in 1846) the beautiful and wealthy actress Christine Enghaus. In choosing this path, he abandoned Elise Lensing (who remained faithful to him until her death), on the grounds that "a man's first duty is to the most powerful force within him, that which alone can give him happiness and be of service to the world" -- in his case the ability to write, which would have perished "in the miserable struggle for existence." This "deadly sin," which, "if peace of conscience be the test," was, he believed, the best decision of his life. Lensing, however, still provided inspiration for his art. As late as 1851, shortly after her death, he wrote the little epic Mutter und Kind, intended to show that the parent-child relationship is the essential factor for happiness, among all classes and under all conditions.Hebbel had already achieved fame long before this, with German sovereigns bestowing honors upon him. In foreign capitals he was fêted as the greatest of living German dramatists. From the grand-duke of Saxe-Weimar he received a flattering invitation to take up his residence at Weimar, where several of his plays were first performed. He remained, however, at Vienna until his death.